Velard is currently an Artist-in-Residence at Joe’s Pub in New York, where he’s working on building a show around the songs from throughout his career. In the meantime, he’s about to go on tour to promote Fancy Words, and you can see all of the dates here.

We spoke with Velard about the song, the musical that inspired it, and how it all fits into the context of the record, where his songs form a story of a musician who realizes that stardom will forever be out of reach as he finds happiness in his personal life. As he tells us, it’s autobiographical, but its overall message, that giving up on your dreams can be liberating, is universal. You can read the interview below the video.

This is a little different from the other videos you’ve made. I’m thinking largely of “Love Again for the First Time,” which had a typical, nice-guy, piano-playing, singer-songwriter vibe to it. How did you come about this concept?

The animators are these people call Wefail, and they’re these Flash animators that I’ve been a huge fan of for forever. They kind of got really successful – they did Eminem’s website and the Dixie Chicks’ website. And then, in 2007, the iPhone launched, and the iPhone wouldn’t process Flash. So their whole vehicle for this counter-culture, subversive – but darkly funny – type of sensibility through Flash animation got a real bump in it.

Right around that time I was really fortunate to get EMI to get them to design my website. It was this crazy website that was all based on movies. It was like a big video game and I’m still obsessed with it. It still lives on the internet so you can see their true genius at work. Then they moved on to making apps, but I’d been wanting to do a music video with them for a while. We couldn’t figure out the budget stuff.

I just had a baby, and getting the record done in time [for the baby’s arrival] was a struggle, so making a live-action music video was out of the question. So I reached out to them and said, “I have this song. Will you do it for this much? Here are some basic ideas of what I’m looking for and you guys can do whatever you want and I’ll say, ‘Yes.’” And they were like, “OK.”

They took the loose concepts that I had and created this universe of me performing this messed-up version of Hamilton, where I’m getting into fights with Ed Sheeran and Lin-Manuel Miranda, which is a decent lyrical approximation of this new record.

What’s really funny is the randomness to the people who show up on stage. Ed Sheeran and Billy Joel are expected, and you get body-slammed by Miranda. But there’s also Bob Dylan, Morrissey, and Jeff Lynne – and the Mystery Science Theater 3000 cast is watching it.

Right, which implies this deeper meaning that it’s clearly a failed musical, because why would MST3K be watching it if it wasn’t the worst thing ever made?

Given that you’re a musician, and a New Yorker in your mid-to-late 30s, would it be safe to assume that Hamilton has been a major topic of conversation in your social circles for the past year-and-a-half or so?

Yeah. I think the mistake that a lot of people make when they talk about the song is that I hate the musical Hamilton. The irony is that, when I wrote it and right up until the album’s release, I hadn’t seen the show. There’s a reference to this in the bridge (“I’ve listened to the soundtrack and I think that it’s OK“). So this guy in the song is spewing all this vitriol and frustration centered on the musical but it’s not even clear if he’s seen it, which I think makes the song more interesting.

But really the song is about – and fitting into the concept of the record – the feeling that you haven’t found your vehicle yet and that it hasn’t been recognized, and that the thing that you’ve trying to say for your entire career is going unsaid, largely due to resources, but also because that’s how life works, you know? And I think that’s the real message of the song, and Hamilton is this prop, just like the Ed Sheeran song. They’re not about Hamilton or Ed Sheeran; they’re more about the guy singing the songs.

Right. There’s an admission of jealousy towards Lin-Manuel. So basically you’re Aaron Burr to his Hamilton.

Absolutely! I almost wish they had dressed me up like Aaron Burr in the video. That’s exactly what I am.

So are you going to meet him at Weehauken at dawn?

I don’t think there’s going to be a duel. He’s very likable. I have the feeling that if I hung out with him I’d think he was cool, you know? I like him, and he feels like a real New Yorker to me.

And that’s the other thing about Lin-Manuel. You’re both 37, natives of Manhattan – there’s a parallel there.

He’s just three-fourths of the way closer to the EGOT than I am. That’s the only difference. Wait, he’s that close to the PEGOT, because he won the Pulitzer.

But you did see it, and did your feelings about the show change once you saw the staging and the whole production?

I don’t know if I like musical theater. I love narrative songs; I love storytelling. But as my wife – a musical theater performer who’s been on national tours and has her Equity card (and is also in the video) – pointed out to me, theater is about the experience – the experience of going to the theater. It’s not necessarily always about the narrative structure or about the storytelling. And, I think, in that respect, Hamilton was a unique experience and I’ve never seen anything like it before.

I wasn’t fortunate enough to see it with the original cast, which seems like it was a happening and a moment in time. But, as far as the narrative structure, it’s not necessarily something I would be excited to see again. Then again, I also think, “Who am I to critique that show?” because it’s clearly the work of a genius. You kind of can’t argue with that. It’s indisputable.

In my mind, as much as the anecdotes in the song and the narrative of the album is my story, I don’t necessarily feel like it’s me singing it. Or it’s a version of me in a certain light. The whole idea of the record for me is about gaining the awareness that it’s okay to accept where you are, and that it’s okay to fail. It’s okay to not be what you thought you were going to be.

So in the same way that Mr. Saturday Night was a character that you created, or Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm – it’s more of an extension or an exaggeration of one part of your personality?

Mr. Saturday Night was much more of an identity. This is me; this is my story, no doubt. But I’m able to take a perspective outside of myself. What I’d like to think that the people who get into my records find endearing is that it’s like listening to Billy Joel or Randy Newman records – or maybe more like Billy Joel, because Randy Newman’s never himself, except on the later records – but with a self-awareness.

My harshest critique of Billy Joel is that he’s painfully not self-aware. And that’s both the beauty of him and his Achilles heel. In interviews, he still doesn’t understand why he’s not regarded in the same light as Bob Dylan. And you wanna be like, “Dude, you’re Billy Joel. That’s pretty awesome. You don’t need to be Bob Dylan.”

“Hamilton” is the first song on the record, and that’s me at my angriest. “Why not me?” That’s the question. And the answer, which I’d like to think you find when you get to the last two songs – “Goodbye Hollywood, Hello Adulthood” and the cover of “The Rainbow Connection” – is, “You know why it’s not you? Because it’s not you. That’s why.”

“The Rainbow Connection” is the explanation, at least the way I interpreted it, that dreams are bullshit. They’re not important. It’s about the action of believing in the dream.

Yeah, you definitely found a darker meaning in that song than has ever been interpreted. It’s right there with the harmonies on the piano. I know Frank LoCrasto is playing the piano, but did you write that arrangement?

He wrote all the arrangements. I outlined the harmonic structure, so I said, “Hey look. These are the voicings that I have in mind, but then just go do your thing on it. This is the tone that I’ve set. I want this level of tension. Explore that space.” So it’s both of our interpretations of the song harmonically.

You were talking about “Goodbye Hollywood, Hello Adulthood,” and “Hamilton” pops up again at the beginning of it. A car starts and “Don’t Ask Me About Hamilton” is playing on the radio. Was that a conscious nod to Billy Joel’s “Say Goodbye to Hollywood?” and the way that song ends?

That’s definitely there, but really this record is my version of the Billy Joel that I always wanted. It’s the guy who understand himself, and that’s what the song’s about. Also I thought having “Don’t Ask Me About Hamilton” play on the radio was a nice thematic thread. It shows the journey the character has taken since the first song. “Remember when he was this angry person? Remember when he didn’t know where he was supposed to be and didn’t understand why Lin-Manuel Miranda is as successful as he is and he’s not?” “Goodbye Hollywood, Hello Adulthood” is the acceptance of that fact and the moving on.

And what helps bring along that acceptance is that, since If You Don’t Like It, You Can Leave, you’ve gotten married and had a child.

I wrote this whole record, with the exception of the Ed Sheeran song, during the pregnancy, After I finished the last record, I got a lot of feedback on this one song, “Jimmy Young,” because of its narrative strain. I wanted to go deeper into that world. So that’s what “Ed Sheeran” was. But I realized that, on its own, “The Night Ed Sheeran Slept on My Couch” felt bizarre, and an angry song to write – like a takedown.

And that’s never the way I see these things. The context is everything. So when you put the Ed Sheeran song in the framework of the whole record, along with the “Hamilton” song, you start to see there’s a much larger picture being painted, and those songs are extremes of a pole. And the answer is sort of in the middle.

So I tried to keep the pregnancy out of it. The only time I mentioned there’s a child is in “Something’s Gotta Be Wrong,” because it’s the last song I wrote and we were seven months in. Some of the anxiety had passed and I was like, “You know, I’m just gonna throw this in here,” because this character that I’ve created is me. There’s no fantasy situation, whereas some of my other records were in this place of “What if this happened?” The album is reading in between the lines and providing context to my life.

“Hamilton,” “Ed Sheeran” and “Trust Is a Four-Letter Word” have, by far, caused the most ruckus with people being like, “Man, you sound bitter” or “You sound angry. What’s your problem?” I’d like to think those songs, taken in context, inform the story and form the narrative. But if you remove them, it’s like “What the hell does this guy feel? Where did this song come from?”

The challenge is that you still have to make yourself sympathetic in the song.

Those songs aren’t supposed to come off as “Poor me,” because that’s never compelling. I wanted to put those songs in a larger context about what it means to pursue a dream. In “Trust Is a Four-Letter Word,” everybody talks about how the cream rises to the top, or the wheat separates from the chaff. First of all, as a New Yorker, I don’t even know what the heck that means – wheat and chaff. I’ve never even seen that. But it’s also the most dismissive, worst answer that anybody can tell somebody, because it’s just like, “If you’re good, just keep doing it and then one day, life will be awesome.”

Anyone who’s done any kind of work where there’s no clear monetary goal in sight – like any freelancer – will tell you that the journey is everything. The journey is how you acquire all the skills and the knowledge. It’s the story that informs the future.

So if you live your life in this land of “It’s going to happen in the future,” it’s reductive, and perhaps the most frustrating thing an artist can hear. And yet, it’s the predominant philosophy of pop culture. People assume that if it’s popular, then it must be good, and if it’s not popular, then it’s not good.

And there are so many other factors involved, like luck and timing, and sometimes other things that are a little seedy.

The key element is timing. And I’d like to think that the character in the album comes to realize, especially at the end of “Goodbye Hollywood,” it’s this idea that every one-trick pony gets a second act. There’s always another end to the story; the story keeps going.

The truly gracious people, and I think the wisest people, who are in the music business will tell you, “Yeah, I got lucky. A break made all the difference. It wasn’t because I made this thing, and it was brilliant, and the world recognized it and I am a better person than everyone else because of it.” But that’s the narrative that society promotes, and that the industry promotes. People don’t want to believe that the universe is random, and chaotic and doesn’t care.

But that is the narrative, that you’re going from “Why aren’t I as big as that guy?” to “I’m kind of cool with it.”

I’m attempting to accept it. That’s why I needed “The Rainbow Connection.” I knew that song was the whole arc of the record, to get people to hear “The Rainbow Connection” in a different light. That is an insanely deep song when you unpack it, because there are so many things going on there. He’s suggesting that dreams are bullshit, but he wants to believe in them anyway.

Yeah, the line, “The lovers, the dreamers and me.” It suggests that he’s neither a lover nor a dreamer.

I do think it’s one of the greatest pop lyrics. It’s up there with the Great American Songbook or Dylan tunes. But it’s cast in this light of the Muppets and this saccharine melody, which makes it even more perverse.

And you’re about to go on tour.

I’m gonna hit the Northeast, a little bit of the Southeast and California. Then I’m gonna go to Europe and do England, Holland and potentially some other countries are in the mix. I waited to get the baby out, and now I’m gonna evangelize the gospel of failure to the masses. And the title of the album is a great excuse for when 12 people come to see me. I look like a genius.

Is it going to be with the full band or solo?

I’m touring with Frank LoCrasto, who played on the record, and we’re doing two keyboards, but at times I’ll be standing up and singing and doing some monologue-type stuff. It’s not going to be like my typical singer-songwriter identity. The arc is going to be more emotional. What I’m trying to do, which is what I’m doing at Joe’s Pub as an Artist-in-Residence, is develop a larger, more narrative context – a real show that these songs live in, that take the emotional arc of the record and make it explicit. I’m experimenting with a bunch of different ways – chronological and other things – but the obstacle I’ve encountered is that these are standalone stories, and with a show, there’s a captive audience, and how do you express what the overall meaning of these songs are. I’m hoping to go into 2018 with something that I may start legitimately workshopping in a theater.

I had only just heard Molly Tuttle’s name for the first time as she recently appeared singing dynamic harmonies on Korby Lenker’s newest album.  So it was quite a fortuitous surprise to learn that she had just released Rise, a 7-song mini album.  And what a wonderful piece of work it is, too.  Pure American sounds shining brightly – acoustic guitars, fiddles, banjos and one of the sweetest, natural voices I’ve heard in ages.

“Good Enough” is more than good enough; Ms. Tuttle’s singing matches the freewheeling, bluegrass feel of this track, which putters along at a good clip and leaves you catching your breath when it’s over; “You Didn’t Call My Name” is melancholic but the feel of Ms. Tuttle’s voice offsets the darker emotions of the music and the lyrics and “Save This Heart” has some astounding guitar playing and builds up in a taut, dramatic way with controlled guitar feedback which doesn’t distract and actually keeps the track in check as it goes from soft to fever pitch – and that ending is simply fantastic.  “Lightning In A Jar” is soft and delicate, with Ms. Tuttle’s soothing voice and gentle guitars framed by a subdued mix of banjo, pedal steel runs and standup bass and “Friend And A Friend” is another bluegrass romper that’s completely irresistible and running rampant.

I have to admit – I’m quite taken by Ms. Tuttle’s performances; she delivers with an unpretentious freshness and natural warmth.  The songs are all highly melodic and I found myself going back and listening to certain tracks over and over.  If I can gripe about anything here, it’s that there aren’t more songs to marvel at.  So here’s hoping it won’t be too long before Molly Tuttle brings us a full-length album.  She’s quite a joy to hear.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Rise is currently available

https://www.mollytuttlemusic.com/

And unlike those other artists, the Suburbs are still making their unique brand of punk-pop-art-dance records. Some say they’re like a Midwest version of Roxy Music but with more of a rock edge, and a notable sense of humor. Unlike many bands that are an ongoing concern after 40 years, the Suburbs these days include two members, keyboard player and singer Chan Poling and drummer Hugo Klaers, who were there at the inception. Sax player Max Ray has been with them for so long that he might as well be considered an original member. Making the stew even stronger, the Suburbs have added guitar players Stevie Brantseg and Jeremy Ylvisaker, bassist Steve Price, and background singer Janey Winterbauer. Joining Ray in the horn section are baritone sax player Rochelle Becker, and Stephen Kung who plays horns and keyboards.

Make no mistake. The Suburbs could have called it a day years ago with their reputation intact. Hits like “Waiting,” “Music for Boys,” “Life is Like,” “Rattle My Bones,” and the more recent marriage equality anthem “Love is the Law,” will keep the band’s music fresh in the ears of the public for years to come. But the Suburbs have no interest in resting on their laurels and their last single, “Turn the Radio On,” was recognized in a poll of local music critics published by the Minneapolis Star Tribune as “Song of the Year.” And this year their latest album, Hey Muse!, produced by Poling and Price, has the critics praising the band all over again.

“The ensemble maintains its quirky spunk and funky pop energy,” according to the New Yorker magazine.

You’ve probably heard of the legendary Minneapolis club called 1st Avenue. You know … Prince, Purple Rain, all that stuff. The last time the Suburbs played there, music writer Chris Remenschneider was impressed enough to Tweet: “I didn’t get to see @thesuburbsband back in the day, but I see a lot of bands today & would rate ’em very high among ’em.”

Now the Suburbs are back with a brand new video and Popdose is proud to host the exclusive premiere. The video for “Je Suis Strange” was directed by Deacon Warner along with co-directors Lea Redding and Thomas Solowiej.

“Je Suis Strange” is about feeling outside society and yet craving connection,” Poling told Popdose. “The protagonist is proud of his outsider status but still hopes the Princess will come and kiss him ‘on his lily pad’ and awaken the Prince inside. The video, using found old animations, turns this fairy tale dark and twisted (and yet funny). My favorite thing!”

And so, without further adieu, here is the exclusive video premiere of “Je Suis Strange” by the Suburbs.

Kuban was a drummer from St. Louis. He was just out of high school when he put together his In-Men there in 1964. They were eight pieces strong and included a horn section, which was something of an anachronism given that it was the year that the British Invasion, with its emphasis on guitars, was arriving on these shores.

The British Invasion wasn’t the only thing that was going on at that time. The Vietnam War was heating up and musicians were just as susceptible to the draft as anyone else. In order to keep their deferments, members of the In-Men had to stay in college or work day jobs as teachers. That impacted the band’s ability to tour much beyond their local area.

They recorded “The Cheater” in St. Louis, and released it on Musicland Records in 1966. Originally the song had been written in the first person, but as Kuban told writer Rick Simmons, he was looking for something with energy, excitement, and a driving rhythm, so the narrative was changed to third person and a bridge was added.

Whatever changes they made worked very well. The record charged up the Billboard Hot 100 until it peaked at #12. It was a million-seller and gold record award-winner. The success of “The Cheater” led to nationwide touring and television appearances for the band, including a spot on American Bandstand.

“The Cheater” was also a hit overseas and a tour was planned but the United States government stepped in at that point and let Kuban know that if the band went overseas their deferments would be pulled and they would all be re-classified 1-A. Instead of touring, they returned to the studio. They were looking for a strong follow-up to “The Cheater,” but what they got was “The Teaser,” a song that Kuban himself had little use for and only managed to reach the #70 spot on the Pop chart.

The next single, a cover of the Beatles song “Drive My Car,” didn’t even do that well, only reaching #93. Still, Bob Kuban and the In-Men had placed three singles in the Top 100 in a single year, and that was promising to say the least. But the future would not turn out to be as bright as it looked, primarily because the band’s manager, Mel Friedman, was plotting, unbeknownst to Kuban, to pull lead singer Scott out of the group and push him into a solo career.

There they were, a band with three chart singles in one year, including a million-seller, and yet they were on the verge of dissolution. Eventually, Scott did leave for that solo career, a move that didn’t work out for him, or for Kuban and the band because none of them was able to reach the heights they had hit with “The Cheater.”

Flash forward almost 20 years and Bob Kuban and the In-Men, including Scott who had realized his mistake, were planning a reunion concert in 1983. Then suddenly and mysteriously, Scott disappeared. It took nearly four years to find his body at which time it emerged that Scott had been shot and thrown into a water tank. In a shocking twist of fate, given that Scott was the lead singer on “The Cheater,” the perpetrator turned out to be the then-boyfriend of Scott’s second wife. In addition to Scott, he killed his own wife and was given two life sentences for his crimes. Scott’s ex-wife was sentenced to five years for hindering the prosecution of the murders.

Kuban continues to tour around the Midwest with his band to this day. He remains bitter about the way that Friedman undermined his band when they were on the brink of big-time success. Kuban was recognized by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their permanent exhibit of one-hit wonders.

We’re still marking the 100-year anniversary of the most ghoulish, pointless war the world has seen — World War I. Mental Floss is up to its 284th entry in a grim, essential series retelling the events 100 years after they happened.

And we were supposed to learn from that. We were supposed to make sure the entire generation of European sons who were wiped out in horrific fashion would be the last to do so.

But in the past week, we’ve needlessly ramped up rhetoric with North Korea. And we’ve seen armed white supremacists walk through the peaceful college town of Charlottesville, punctuated by a man driving a car into a crowd and killing three people.

Have we not learned anything?

We sometimes find hope in strange places. Right now, I find it in the fact that a Boston “Celtic punk” band whose music is sometimes used for pumping up a crowd at sports events has taken an old solemn Irish lament for the lost sons of the Great War and modernized it just slightly, giving it the emphatic punch it needs.

The original is by one Eric Bogle, who was born in Scotland and moved to Australia as a child. He also wrote And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, another classic World War I remembrance written “as an oblique comment on the Vietnam war.” The song of this post, The Green Fields of France (sometimes called No Man’s Land), also had a contemporary point to make — it was written in one of those flare-ups of tension between Ireland and England, and Bogle wanted to remind the English that the Irish bled alongside them.

And Bogle’s original is certainly worth a listen:

There are a few other noteworthy covers of the song. The unlikely pairing of Joss Stone and Jeff Beck turned it into a modern R&B tune. The Fureys and Davey Arthur had Irish chart success with it, introducing it as  “probably the greatest anti-war song ever written.” I particularly love the follow-up comment in the intro: “If people would listen to it all over the world, there’d be less trouble than we have at the moment.”

But my favorite performance is still the first one I heard. If you don’t think the Dropkick Murphys can do this tune justice, listen up. It’s lovely. The vocals are sublime. The piano, the pipes and all the Celtic touches are perfect.

The basic idea of this blog series is to try to explain song meanings. This one is pretty easy, and we’ve already covered the subtext of Bogle writing it during a time of English/Irish upheaval. At Genius, the contributors decode all the references to funeral songs and so forth. The first two verses start a conversation between a traveler and a young soldier named Willie McBride, whose grave he visits.

The third verse ups the ante. No longer is this about one Willie McBride. These brilliant lines expand the meaning:

But here in this graveyard that’s still no man’s land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation were butchered and damned

That’s World War I in a nutshell. And if that’s not bad enough, the narrator has bad news for young Willie McBride.

And I can’t help but wonder oh Willie McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause
Did you really believe that this war would end wars
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing and dying, it was all done in vain
Oh Willie McBride, it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again …

Bleak stuff. And yet I take hope from hearing this song. Maybe Bogle, the Fureys, Joss Stone and the Dropkick Murphys will get through to a future generation.

Because I firmly believe that the peacemakers are the majority. This is a song by the peacemakers, sung by peacemakers, for peacemakers of all generations to come.

“Regan’s Song,” the latest video collaboration by Razorhouse bandleader Mark Panick and filmmaker and photographer Peter Rosenbaum, is an vivid, black and white tribute to Regan, who was a fixture in Chicago’s punk and LGBTQ bar scene from the late 1970s until her death in 1997. Popdose is pleased to present it here for you as an exclusive.

Regan was a model for the famous photographer Francesco Scavullo. She was both openly transsexual and defiantly tough in an era before LGBTQ acronyms, where terms for gender identity and even words such as “transsexual” weren’t part of daily lexicon. Embraced by Chicago’s underground music and art scenes, Regan was notorious for her beauty and her steel; her persona wrapped in a combination of punk glamor and hairspray; a razor sharp combination of dangerous wit and vulnerability. Panick met Regan in the early ‘80s Chicago punk scene amid misfits and social nonconformists. From the thick-skinned yet kindred underground, Panick tells Regan’s tale of trying to be yourself in world that shuns your very identity. Regan “lived by her wits,” according to Panick.

Think about this one as you watch and listen.

https://www.intherazorhouse.com/